All You Need Is Love
AND MAYBE A NEW SET OF RULES
When I was a kid, every Friday morning my mother went to the beauty parlor to get her hair done.
Not wanting me and my ever-pricked-ears listening in on all the lady trash talk and gossip, she'd give me a few bucks and let me roam the wonderland that was the card and gift shop next door.
This was the 1970s and just about everything in there had some sort of inspirational message, political cartoon or dirty-ish joke on it.
I loved how grown-up I felt when I got the joke, or could remember a saying to repeat to my friends.
I recall being drawn to this wild, psychedelic mug because the groovy patterns and flowers on it reminded me of the cartoons that I watched.
It took a moment to figure out what the mug said because the words were set in a spiral among all the flowers and mushrooms.
IF YOU LOVE SOMEONE, SET THEM FREE.
What???
My little brain couldn't understand what the hell it meant.
I had learned with absolute certainty that the exact opposite was true. WHEN YOU LOVE SOMEONE DON'T LET THEM OUT OF YOUR SIGHT.
Between TV shows, my tight-knit family, and what I picked up each week before I got shooed out from the beauty parlor, I knew that if you loved someone you should:
Want to be with them more than anything or anyone else.
Think about them all the time (literally - all the time).
Show them how much you think about them by giving thoughtful gifts on the right occasions.
Put their needs ahead of your own.
The mug gave me a stomach ache.
Eventually, though, I forgot all about it and went about my life, loving people up with all my might and crying (a lot) when they didn't love me back. (See bullets above.)
Some time later, I fell in madly love with a man who did absolutely none of the things that one SHOULD do. (Again, see bullets above...)
I cried constantly, but I stayed because in some weird way, he appeared to love me in spite of breaking all of the rules. In fact, he appeared not just to love me, but to like me, and to respect me too.
As I started to wise up, I noticed something...
My adopted rules weren't based on love, they were based on the fear of losing love.
I looked around and I noticed something else...
Playing by (or trying to play by) those rules always seems to result in one of 3 outcomes:
You get your feelings hurt so often that you no longer share yourself fully with others and become more of a caregiver or observer than an actual participant in the relationship. (This was me in the early years.)
You feel so rejected that you become angry and resentful and you drive people off while trying to protect yourself.
Your fear creates a needy energy and as you desperately try to pull people closer, you end up pushing them away.
In all three cases, you wind up feeling the same way...lonely.
This Week: IF YOU LOVE SOMEONE, SET THEM FREE.
It turns out that the only "rules" required to create amazingly beautiful and loving relationships are pretty simple:
Accept one another fully, as you are.
Strive that each individual may grow, unimpeded into his/her best self.
Allow love to flow fully (aka...be vulnerable to one another).
Create healthy (behavioral) boundaries that serve the above even when it means releasing the relationship completely.
The ones you end up keeping will be the real deal and you'll probably end up keeping them for life.